


Willow Creek

by spensierata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, One Shot, a lil angsty, on the run fic, spoilers for season 9 onwards i guess, squatchin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 06:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15943541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spensierata/pseuds/spensierata
Summary: Mulder and Scully find Bigfoot. Kinda.





	Willow Creek

She watched the pearly snow wistfully through the glass, how it swirled and settled on the ground, and silently wished it wasn’t so goddamn hot. 

Scully tugged and tied her hair up and away from her face, now a long, dirt brown. Ginger creeping back in, a gleaming golden crown at her roots, she would need to dye it all again soon. Some days she desperately missed the red of it, the red of the earth in fall. She was made for autumn, not the sweltering California summer, which lingered relentlessly through October.

When Mulder pulled up to the Redwood Coast strategically in mid-September, they passed a sign with a blurry snapshot, she genuinely and for one long minute considered a divorce. No. _Mulder, no_. She pleaded,  _Don’t do this, I swear to God._  But he was consistent, ever-tortured, toned, greying, but consistent. Mulder had dropped hints about the Bigfoot festival when their relationship was still in its infancy. When they were still the worst kept secret in the FBI before the mass surveillance scandal broke. Whenever an inexplicably bloody case would push them south, he would bring it up, she would shut him down, and that would be the end of that. But he was still Mulder, and she was a fool to ever entertain that he would let something go.  _Come on Scully, It’s like a parade, It’ll be fun._  He promised, pulled their joined hands to his mouth as he drove, brushed a kiss to her bare ring finger. _It’ll be just like old times._

He was ten years younger when he stepped out the car, rugged and silver, a hungry glimmer in his eyes. So for a day, just one day, she would go along with him, just to have briefly him back. She tipped the snow globe again and watched wistfully as the plastic blizzard repeated its dance over the plastic scene. She was considering paying for it when Mulder grabbed her arm and whisked her away from the packed souvenir stall and into the cool shade of the empty woods.

“Mulder, what the  _hell_?”

“Scully, I saw something,” he said, breathless in his excitement. She tugged herself from his grasp, irate. The stolen snowglobe was weighty in her hand, and she had half a mind to beat him with it.

“Mulder. This is the  _Bigfoot. Festival._ ” she snapped, “They probably hired people in costume…”

“Scully, shhh…” Mulder halted abruptly in front of her, his hand coming up and almost knocking her down. “Look,”

He pointed vaguely through the thick, dark bracken of trees. The immensity of the forest dwarfed them, the familiar, terrene scent of pine encompassed them. Sure enough, somewhere in the distance, amongst the endless sea of blood red bark, something moved. Something wailed. Mulder was gone, shooting off through the wood, leaving Scully with little choice but to sigh, and to follow.

She found him in a clearing, he had caught his cryptid, she was catching her breath. A small boy about five years old in a bigfoot shirt, a bigfoot cap, with a bigfoot balloon twice the size of him tied around his wrist. It was lucky that wind didn’t exist in this state, or it probably could have carried him away. The cryptic kid’s face crumpled. Mulder was on his knees in front of him as he cried  _Mommy_  and her heart hit the forest floor.

“You lost little guy?” Mulder asked, “Out looking for Bigfoot, were ya?”

The boy sniffed and nodded. He flushed soft pink, his freckles coming forth from his skin like little flecks of rust. His oversized hat falling in front of his eyes, concealing his fragility. Scully felt her chest tighten at the sight.

“Hey, we used to be monster hunter’s too, you know,” she said, her tone surprising her in its tenderness. The boy glanced up, she felt her lungs might explode from the pressure. He fixed his gaze on the snowglobe in her hands, she offered it silently to him, he reached out cautiously like a deer, feeding from a human hand for the first time, before he took it, shook it, watching mesmerised as the snow glittered and fell.

As if on cue a loudspeaker crackled overhead like thunder, announcing a missing son. Mulder carried him back, muttering stories of river monsters and devils in jersey. His tiny velcro shoes found their way around his torso, muddied the back of his flannel shirt, the little boy clung to him tight. He peered at her curiously over Mulder’s shoulder, with big, watery, forest-green eyes. Scully mustered a smile and forced herself to look away.

They didn’t get far back into the festivity before a woman plucked him from Mulder's arms and held him close for dear, dire life.

“Thank God,” she said, with her voice shaking, the way only a mother’s does, thick with worry, rough with relief, “I told you not to run off like that,”

The boy slumped in her arms, drained and placated, his arm stuck out awkwardly from the embrace, as to not crush the snowglobe. She thanked them profusely, shifting her son’s weight, flinching at the cool glass on her skin.

“Where did you get that, honey?” his mother asked, going for the globe, her son jerked it possessively from her reach.

“I gave it to him,” Scully answered for him. The woman looked conflicted, between surprised and wary, or maybe she was just cursing at the thought of bringing home another tacky souvenir.

“Why don’t you thank the nice lady and we can go,” The mother relented.

The boy hesitated, finding words, thumbing the keychain he wore on his finger like a ring. A simple gold disk engraved with a sasquatch silhouette, and the year underneath. They locked eyes for a moment and he pressed it into her palm, sealing their trade. He smiled. “Thank you,” he whispered. Then he was gone. She could breathe again. The metal was heavy and warm in her hand, she turned it over. Willow Creek. A reminder, a memory. Scully allowed herself a curious second, running her thumb over the cursive words and went to join Mulder, where he waited in the dwindling crowd.


End file.
